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June 03, 2012

What To Expect When You're Expecting in Port Charles

If I were pregnant in Port Charles, I would...I would be seriously upset, because odds are that Sonny would be the father of my child, even if we had never slept together, because the only real skill he seems to have is fathering children. Anyway, if I were pregnant in Port Charles, I'd go on bedrest almost immediately because everything on the planet is a danger for pregnant women in this town. Stairs? DEADLY. Inclement weather? KILLER. Dr. Lee? DANGEROUSLY INCOMPETENT.

Any reasonable woman knows this and, during a huge rainstorm, would simply call 911 at the first sight of drizzle and request to be taken to General Hospital just in case. Tea, clearly, doesn't know any better because she's just a visitor (and based on the sounds she makes, might not even be human at all. What were those noises? How can a person's vocal cords do that? I was mystified), but Sam? Sam should know! Sam should have parked herself in the GH waiting room in, like, January and refused to leave. Actually, scratch that--she should have parked herself in the Mercy Hospital waiting room and refused to leave, because then at least she wouldn't be grappling with Kelly. Fools, fools, fools!

Because of this foolishness, Tea and Sam found themselves giving birth in the most dangerous and unsanitary ways possible, each aided by a man noticeably lacking any sort of medical training, while a vengeful and ever-nutty. Heather Webber meanders around town accompanied by a corpse and dressed like she's living out her own version of I Know What You Did Last Summer. And they will soon find themselves in the midst of that soap staple: the baby switch story. I mean, right? We have a(-nother) dead/dying baby and a live baby whose mother is being targeted by a vengeful crazy. CLEARLY, we are in for some shenanigans and a whole lot of sadness on the part of Sam McCall.

So, let's rewind and discuss two very different types of ridiculous labor filled with contrivances galore.

Todd found Tea collapsed in a parking garage, in the midst of the storm, which is unsurprising because, you know, Port Charles, etc. When she comes to, the sparring begins and I have to say that as someone who only knows the most basic Cliff's Notes version of their past, I enjoyed it immensely.

Todd: You can't drive in that condition. Look at you -- you're about ready to pop.Téa: God, I hate that expression.Todd: You know what? Sit in the back seat, and we can discuss new ways to say it. Delgado, hate me all you like, but hate me from the backseat.Téa: You drive carefully or I will kill you.Todd: Okay. Watch your head. You're all right. [Muttering] "Thank you, Todd, for picking me up off the floor of the parking garage and holding the door for me."

Roger Howarth is hilarious.

Then, of course, Tea went into labor. During a storm, which completely knocked down cell phone towers and made roads treacherous, with only a nemesis to help deliver her child who, in true soap fashion, came in record-setting time. There were only a few minutes of Tea screeching and howling and bantering with Todd before her son was born.

Todd: Delgado, listen. You're in an economy-class rental car. I wouldn't change my shoes in here, much less have a baby.

Todd: I wish I could go back in time and change that. If I could, I would. But I can't. But I can help you move forward. Téa: You call this moving forward, huh?! I'm at a bus stop!Todd: Okay. Maybe the bus will come. Maybe there'll be a gynecologist on the bus.

Hilarious.

I am trying to hold onto the humor while I can, because things got incredibly depressing incredibly quickly when Todd realized that the baby wasn't breathing properly. And when he went to look for a car to get the baby to the hospital, he found Anthony Zacchara. In a wheelbarrow. With sunglasses and a gruesome smile. Weirder things have happened to him, I'm sure, but even he didn't seem prepared for the sight of Heather Webber who is a nutter on a good day, but whose crazy is dialed up a notch or ten in a yellow rain slicker.

SHUDDER.

She is very interested in the baby, and when Todd agrees to let her look (with a threat that he'll hurt her if she hurts the baby), she looks concerned. And then I get concerned because I have a sudden psychic vision of Sam learning that her child has suddenly "died" and I am basically pre-crying.

Sam, meanwhile, went to ask my fictional boyfriend John McBain--oh, no, the obsession hasn't lessened. If anything, it has intensified. I LOVE him!--if he was responsible for Jason getting arrested for Franco's murder. She views this as a bad thing, and I'm just sitting here all doe-eyed, like, "And he upholds the LAW! And he's all GRAVELLY-VOICED!"". But he didn't. Anyway, they hash things out and wouldn't you know it, Sam goes into labor! Who would have thought?!

All things considered, the labor goes surprisingly well and Sam gives birth to an absolutely enormous preemie and I must be getting softer as I get older, but it gave me the warm and fuzzies to see her finally have her baby.

John went to go get his car to take her to the hospital and was interrupted by some life ruining, in the form of two thugs sent to take care of business, violently, on Jason's orders. I mostly blame this on Sonny--I mean, yes, it was Jason's and we all know that he's been about as dickish as can be these days, but Sonny was enjoying upping Jason's hatred of McBain a little too much. "I mean, the guy got you ARRESTED, right? And he's probably going to go after Sam, in the bedroom, if you know what I mean and I think you do. I mean that he's going to have sex with her, in all the different ways. And then he'll probably buy up all of the town's black t-shirts. CAN YOU STAND FOR THAT, JASON?!"

(I know, I know, he left a voicemail calling it off, which was way saintly of him. I'm interested in seeing how well he reacts to knowing that McBain helped Sam deliver her child--will he be grateful that John was there to help, or will he be enraged that Sam didn't at least hold out for a hotel maid?)

So John was beaten to a bloody pulp and left unconscious on the side of the road, in the rain and Sam, perhaps because she's dealt with so many infant tragedies in the past, starts to worry that something is wrong with her baby and panics that he's not breathing right and it's a little bit heartbreaking.

And I'm sure it will only get more so. But it's weird: I have seen this all before--seriously, all of this story's elements have been done dozens of times before--and I don't like where I can so clearly tell that it's going, but it was some engrossing soap. I barely even fast-forwarded towards the end of the week and I only had to mute it a few times, mostly when Sonny was talking.

Comments

Glad you found it all engrossing Mallory. GH was revolting in the Thursday and Friday episodes. The only time I was enthralled was when Tea looked at her cell phone pic of her and Victor. I FFWDed both episodes in record time because everything was either lame or disgusting. Jason blabbing on about Sam as if she cheated on him with another man when she was RAPED by Franco; Johnny showing no remorse for killing Anthony, Cole and Hope while framing Tracey, Luke and Kate; Todd and McBain birthing babies with their bare hands; my anticipating one of the babies dying and then it happened to Tea's baby; the continued "Weekend At Bernie's"-nonsense with Heather's shenanigans. The episodes were so bad, I actually missed Kate/Connie!!! Ugh. Moreover, I miss One Life To Live. I wish that show hadn't been cancelled. GH is an incoherent mess, front-burnering highly unlikeable characters and dreary stories.

I am sorry to sound so sour but the writing is not very good, dead babies does not make for good drama when it occurs on ABC soaps as often as pimples on teenagers. I really do not wish to see Tea and/or Sam grieve a dead baby after months of Starr grieving her dead toddler and fiance; Sam grieving a potential rape and disintegration of her marriage; and Tea grieving Victor. Enough already! There are so many stories to tell and I am tired of the dead children angle.

I liked the episodes of Thursday and Friday too (I thought GH viewers were well trained in screeching but I realize we only thought we knew screeching before Tea) although more for Luke/Lulu/Tracy/Heather than for Tea/McBain/Sam, although I do agree that Sam's baby is cute as heck and Todd is pretty hilarious. Show isn't perfect by any means but at least it's not deathly boring like it was under Wolf. (I find Carlivati and Guza about the same though.)

I liked the episodes. . .contrived though they were, but realistically after watching soaps for the past 30 or so years, I've discovered there are only very few archetypal stories on soaps. . .rarely is anything "new". . .there's the affair, the death of someone close, the baby switch, the baby death(please no), the paternity question, the amnesia, the rape, the back from the dead, the coma, the teen love/virginity-loss, the whodunnit?, the nefarious bad guy/gal with the horrible secret/world freezing machine/case of the crazies. Right? Unfortunately when we get something new it's something like "the reality show" ugh!

I enjoyed the week. . .thought Friday was very good. . . really enjoyed Todd and Tea on both days, even though it usually drives me crazy I could deal with Tea's screaming and weird noises, cuz hey, I've been through labour sans epidural 2X and you make some noise, ya know?. . . loved the slap she gave him. . .very realistic I think infact FloLo actually did hit RH. . .I hate unrealistic slaps on soaps, it's a pet peeve, but I digress.

Sam was very sweet with her baby and the baby is cute as hell (KUDOS to Gh for sticking true to one thing. . .the ability to cast cute kids) and I liked that ASSJason(that's how I'm writing his name now, to distinguish him from "robinJason") is gonna have to live with his own douchiness when he realizes he was responsible for Sam and baby not getting to hospital in a timely fashion.

Heather with Anthony is getting a tad yucky but love Todd's reaction to it all. . "maybe you like gardening". . ."right, you seem to have a real nurturing skill set". Heehee.

Going on record here to say that I think no baby dies, but I think that there will be a baby switch.

If this show really wants to shock us, they should just let both babies live. That's pretty much the last thing anyone's expecting at this point. Also, hasn't this show killed enough kids in the last few years? Kiefer, that Allie chick, Jake, Hope (though I'm still in denial about that)... enough already, show. It's just getting annoying.

And not to be that person, but Tea does remember she has a teenage daughter, right? Dani already has abandonment issues, and now she's about to graduate high school and rather than be there with her, Tea's a couple hundred miles away bailing Starr out of jail? PRIORITIES, lady. At the very least, Tea could CALL Dani!

I'm thinking that Tea's baby might have a breathing problem and as a result be a little "slow" like daddy Victor was supposed to be before Mama Irene did some mojo on his noggin and made him think he was Todd.

I'm also thinking Todd will switch the babies to give his sister-in-law/ex-wife a healthy (i.e., live) baby to make up for (he thinks) killing her husband/his twin...and then be thrown for a loop when he realizes that Tea's baby didn't die after all (which will lead to a very unhealthy interest in Sam's youngun which will not go unnoticed by McBain).

Whatever the outcome, I'm in for the long haul -- I loves me some Ron Carlivati.

OMG please no more dead babies! The fact that we have not seen Tea's baby's face, and his father is not Sonny or Jason, is not encouraging though. And thanks bethie, I am now using the term ASSJason too. But I am really liking the addition of Todd and John. I have totally joined the John fan club, and Todd makes every scene entertaining.
But ok, I've watched soaps for a long time and I really do not expect art to imitate life completely. HOWEVER, these births were just too much. Sam completely dressed a half hour-maybe- after the birth!? And yes, I too was touched, but frankly, that baby wasn't having trouble breathing; that baby was hungry! Nurse that child woman! I know they covered that in your classes! I think it's very odd that they have never shown a nursing woman on any soap I have ever seen. It's been the norm for over a decade now folks. Need to recruit some writers who know just a little more about childbirth. Showing a nursing woman is really not so different from showing someone holding a bottle, and you don't need to be in a hospital for it either.

I enjoyed Todd so much on Friday that I had to watch the show twice. OMG, he was hysterical. "Can you get the seat belt around that bump?" (or something like that, I was laughing so hard at him). The story about Anthony only works because it's Heather who has him, but I loved Todd's reaction to seeing him in the wheelbarrow.
Being a police officer, John has probably at least had a class on child birthing, so I'll give him a pass as a decent deliverer (and really, I'm enjoying him so much more on GH then I ever did on OLTL).
Oh and before Tea slapped Todd (and what was with that weird Lamaze breathing she was doing at one point?), when he made the joke about the gynecologist, she kicked him in the butt. So funny, and I don't even like Tea.
Still cringing though about Sonny making the inference about John sniffing around Sam. Makes them sound like dogs in heat or something. Sonny is really getting bad.

I agree--no more dead babies. Todd is a crack up. Whoever thinks this is the same old GH is mistaken. There's humor (Todd is a crack up) less worshipping of Sonny & Jason, and more faces on the screen.

Before we give more time to these OLTL people though (except Todd) can we have storylines, real ones for Elizabeth, Anna and Patrick. PLEASE.

I am so tired of the same old SL's for babies...dead, switched, stolen...whatever. And I'm FFing through most of the show these days because I'm not liking Heather, Tea, Todd (newbies), Sonny, Jason, Dante, Spinelli, Maxie (as always), nuKristina (recent addition)...the usual suspects except I now have to add my Johnny to this list.

I do like Sam and John (sweet), Luke and Tracy (funny) and Patrick (gorgeous) the rare times he's on.

As you can see by this post, I don't actually watch much of this show. If I didn't suspect it was going off the air sooner than later, I'd probably quit watching, but like the optimist that I am (haha) I keep hoping for better things to come.

Can't believe they're wasting Todd AND Heather in a "baby switch/dead baby" storyline. Save that junk for the Borg, his mate and McBain. And FL is going to kill her vocal cords if she doesn't cool it with all the yelling. We get it, Victor was awesome (*cough*) and you miss him very much. I don't think she grieved this much when she thought her friggin' brother was dead.

Am I the only one that had deja vu of Jake's death again in a way of how the motel seems to have moved. Remember when Emily found Elizabeth's house and the reason she picked the house and Elizabeth loved the house and Robin and Patrick chose to be neighbors to Elizabeth was because the houses were on the outskirts of town, from busy roads, in a good neighborhood where kids could play. Then all of a sudden the neighborhood became full of potholes with no street lights, no sidewalks, and the road became a busy road where everyone went through to get to town the quickest. That's truly how this motel has become.

Reason that Sam chose this motel was because it was near her office, which I never understood that considering she doesn't work and hasn't had a client for months, but I always found that laughable that they wanted us to actually believe that Sam ever gave a damn about being a PI. But that's a discussion for another time.

I'm just really confused. At one point Sam claimed she couldn't move to another floor of the motel because the motel was full. Now all of a sudden the motel is empty where not even the desk clerk is around I'm guessing, since the preview shows her in the woods. Now why she's walking in the woods instead of getting in her car and driving her and her baby to the hospital, we will find out on Monday's eppy. It's not like she definitely needs John to get her to the hospital, but then again I don't remember the last time Sam rescued herself so maybe she does. I don't get how the motel is by the woods considering I thought the office was by the docks, but once again the motel was moved I guess. How Todd can see a cabin but can't see a motel while carrying around Tea's baby, don't get that, but okay. How the thugs can get from Jason's PH to the motel with no problems but Tea/Todd and Sam is supposed to have problems, don't get that.

And speaking of the thugs, all I can say is WTH. I understand they want to further a storyline later on down the line and try to make Jason seem like a bad guy, but Jason hiring thugs right after he just threatened John about leaving town and then the thugs delivering the same message and then the whole "it won't be traced back to me" BS is ridiculous. Jason has never been this sloppy when it comes to handling someone especially when we have watch him speak for weeks about how he knows that McBain is just trying to provoke them just for him to turn around and do something like this. Like seriously don't write Jason doing things like this when we have watched bigger and badder provoke him (ie Taggert - I loved that man) and Jason didn't do the whole 'let me hire thugs and give him a message' BS. To me it's coming off like another dumbing down of a character to force John and Sam to be a couple on down the road.

I'm seriously curious how badly they are going to write Natalie so John is justified to stay in Port Charles and help Sam raise her baby while leaving LIam twisting in the wind. But then again, if Natalie comes to town with Liam, that baby isn't going to make it across the border before he's dead as a doornail.

And on that note, I didn't watch OLTL consistently. Only off and on so it's not like I have a tight bond with the show, but for fans of that show I don't know what to say to them over the fact that it seems that they are killing two Llanview kids within months of each other. I just hope Natalie doesn't come to town with Liam or Blair doesn't brings Sam with her this summer, because they might not make it out of Port Charles alive.

Ladybug, I just find it weird that as of right now (I say right now because we don't know what the hell will happen if Liam comes to town) they have killed two kids for one. I have watched soaps for many years and this is the first time I can remember two kids being taken out just for one soap character to finally have the baby she's always 'wanted'. Poor Liam coming to town won't stand a chance.

There are so many holes in the plots at GH. Kermitklein, you nailed it with the geography of GH. As a soap fan, I can look past ridiculous and contrived if the story is good but the stories aren't good on GH so I am focused on the plot holes! Jason hiring thugs (who of course have to be Black and Hispanic) to beat John when it could only be traced back to him or Sonny is senseless. Jason is the hired thug!

And as much as GH needs the infusion of humor and I like Todd Manning, I find his joking to be off putting and unfunny considering the intensity of his circumstances. If I never watched OLTL I would resent Todd and John and Tea/Starr grieving dead children. Heck, even as a former OLTL fan i resent Tea and Starr in Port Charles!

Also, I tend to not even mention Sam McCall but she is on five days a week and supposed to be the show's lead female character. I have ever liked Sam McCall because she is such a propped-up and poorly developed character. Since she's not going anywhere can she atleast not be frontburnered in depressing story? She is incredibly unsympathetic, yet is on my screen crying about trauma continuously. I am supposed to feel sympathy for her but I only feel irritation in her every scene (admittedly, save a few times when she has flirted with McBain.)

Where's Patrick, Liz, Anna and Mac? These characters are incredibly watchable and yet never seen. Argh.

Soapbaby, the whole point of the geographical errors is to continue to have the character of Sam on our screen for 5 days a week for the next month or two which seriously is going to make me eventually turn off. I know people was complaining about Kate/Connie constantly on our screen, but Kate/Connie doesn't have anything on Sam hogging airtime.

Because this is another glaring geographical question. I'm guessing Tea passed out in the MC parking garage. Since when is the hospital so far away from the MC? I could have sworn that during the MC hostage crisis, Patrick ran from the hospital to the MC. Nnow all of a sudden the hospital and MC are no longer close together.

Gosh Jason & Sam is getting a whole lot of air now they have tied them to Tea & Todd as well as John McBain & Heather they'll never get get off the screen...they've got more story than they can handle & look a little worn out.